Voices in the Street Read online

  The stain was barely noticeable and the blanket was soon hanging over the backs of two chairs, the damp patch slowly steaming in front of the fire. As it was, there were only two kittens and that was a relief to Mum, me and Toots.

  Because of all this kerfuffle, George and I slept in the next morning. Mum had wakened me at six-thirty as usual before heading off to work but I had fallen asleep again. As a result, we had to say a quick cheerio to Toots and family before darting down the Hilltown towards the school. We were passing the small sweet factory at the top of Tulloch Crescent when the school bell went. Rosebank School had separate entrances for boys and girls. The boys’ gate was in Rose Lane, another 500 yards or so from my gate.

  Mum always insisted that I accompany George to the gate and it was a chore I hated. I thought he was old enough to see himself to the playground but it was one of Mum’s rules and had to be obeyed. That particular morning, the most important day in my scholastic life, I knew I couldn’t be late. Without hesitation I demanded that he should come through the girls’ gate.

  He was appalled. ‘What, go past all the lassies?’ he spluttered, his childish face red and obstinate.

  With the snake-like queues of children all marching relentlessly towards the open school doors I had no option but to wrap my trench coat around him and pull him across the playground, his little, protesting legs barely touching the ground. Amid sniggering catcalls from some of the boys, he glared indignantly at me before jumping the low wall and running towards his classmates.

  I had no time to worry about his trivial hurt feelings because I had problems of my own – the exam and my lack of studying. To make matters worse, it was becoming clear from all the lively chatter in the classroom that quite a few of the bright sparks had indeed spent the evening doing nothing but getting into the right frame of mind.

  I sat beside Grace and Ruth, who were discussing their chances of passing the exam. ‘Did you manage to study last night?’ they enquired, gazing at me with button-bright eyes.

  I was tempted to tell the truth but I didn’t think they would be interested in Betty’s drama or the minutiae of our feline population explosion. I just nodded, hoping desperately that all the scholastic facts from the past year had somehow managed to penetrate and cling to the recesses of my brain. At that moment I had to admit it was doubtful.

  The exam soon began in earnest as a flurry of bags and books were quietly tucked out of sight. An unnatural quietness descended on the room, only to be broken by the scraping of pens against paper and the occasional, barely audible groan of despair. At dinnertime we all filed into the dining hall, our faces glum and all the bright chatter from the top class absent. We weren’t so much shell-shocked as exam-exhausted. Although I didn’t know it then, I was about to be faced by another vexing situation.

  Ever since Grandad’s death, we had been taking school dinners and during that long period, even in times of extreme hunger, I could never stomach sago pudding. Perhaps it was the long-distant memory of the horrible, lumpy porridge at Duncarse Home. The dinner lady knew never to give me any and I was quite content to sit at an empty space while all around me my classmates wolfed down this horrible pudding. At least that was the situation until this stressful day when Miss Edwards overheard the woman saying, ‘Oh, Eh just forgot, you never eat sago.’

  The teacher’s face was puce with fury. ‘Never eat sago? Am I hearing this correctly, young madam?’ At this point, everyone within earshot stopped scooping spoonfuls into their mouths to listen.

  ‘Bring over a plate of sago, please,’ Miss Edwards demanded of the open-mouthed server, who protested loudly.

  ‘It doesn’t matter if someone dislikes something – there’s aye someone who wants a second helping.’

  In spite of this backing, the plate was duly placed in front of me. I gazed blankly at it, wishing this awful day was over. It didn’t help that my companions, with heads bent low, dutifully scraped their plates clean, as if to emphasise my full plate. By now the mound of sago was growing colder by the minute, taking on a slightly green, bilious appearance. Miss Edwards stood in an uncompromising attitude behind my back while the two dinner ladies muttered under their breaths.

  ‘Blinking shame, making someone eat something they don’t like. After all, some things give me the boak,’ said one, while her pal nodded in agreement.

  One thing was clear. I was now beginning to realise that if I couldn’t bear to eat sago hot, then it would take a general anaesthetic for me to eat it cold. I considered scooping it into something but, not having had the foresight to arm myself with a hankie or bit of newspaper, I was stymied. It was the afternoon class bell that saved me. Miss Edwards grabbed me by the collar and yelled, ‘Get out! And don’t ever let me see you refuse food again!’

  The dinner ladies gave small, satisfied smiles as I gratefully escaped but I was scared to acknowledge them in case my tormentor was still watching.

  George was waiting for me at four o’clock, a furious look on his face, but I was too fed up to argue with him. It had been a day to remember all right. I wasn’t sure how well I had done in the exam. Had I passed it?

  There was better news about Betty, however. Although the blue tinge was still visible around her lips, she was sitting up in bed with a huge feather eiderdown around her frail shoulders. She was eager to hear about my day and was almost agog when I mentioned the fiasco at dinnertime. She laughed at my exaggerated impression of the teacher, although I didn’t add that there had been precious little to laugh about at the time. Distance in this case lent boldness. Then she became wistful. ‘Eh wish Eh went tae the same school as you. You’re really lucky,’ she said, looking like a brittle, fragile doll.

  This heartfelt statement suddenly made me feel ashamed of my pathetic moans, especially about something as trivial as a plate of sago, but at that time I really thought Betty would get stronger. It was all a matter of taking life easy, building up her strength and then she would be like George and me.

  A few weeks later, Mr Cuthbert stood in front of the class with a list in his hands, reading out the names of pupils who had passed the dreaded ‘Quali’. Most of us had passed, thank the Lord. We were now headed for Rockwell Secondary School after the summer holiday. Auntie Nora gave me a new gym tunic that was too big for my cousin Eleanor. One small flaw was the Harris Academy braid sewn around the square neckline. Still, I had seven weeks to unpick it.

  CHAPTER 16

  Our new house was such a contrast to our old one. The close was situated on a narrow lane that stretched from Canning Street to Moncur Crescent and was always affectionately called ‘the cuttie’. This was obviously a shortened version of ‘the cutting’. Mum didn’t like the large, square kitchen, preferring instead a small, cosy kitchenette, but apart from that it was great to have an inside bathroom and lots of hot water which was provided by the back boiler of the fire.

  Each close had six flats and we were on the ground floor. The living room overlooked a tiny, mangy-looking garden with a postage-stamp-sized square of grass enclosed by one of the bushiest hedges we had ever seen. If a square of grass could be described as moth-eaten then that was a good description of our lawn, while the hedge wouldn’t have been out of place in the grounds of Camperdown Park. The view then swept down over a triangle of stunted bushes that looked as if they had given up and died, then down to the high wall of Dens Park football ground.

  We loved to sit at the window on a Saturday afternoon when the local team was playing at home, watching the profusion of tramcars, buses and a small number of cars driving up Canning Street to park. Then there were the thousands of supporters who thronged through the turnstiles, from our vantage point looking like purposeful ants.

  Compared to the comfortable, well-furnished domain of the Miller family, our flat was spartan, and in spite of the fire, it had a cold appearance. Mum was a bit worried about the rent, which was in excess of what we paid in McDonald Street. Nevertheless, she had to have it ready every Friday nig
ht when the rent man called. Because of this extra demand on our resources we had to make do with Grandad’s old furniture, which looked ancient and scratched when viewed in the sunlit room. Because we rarely saw the sun in our old house, the well-worn condition of the furniture had come as a bit of a shock.

  Mum had taken out a Provident cheque prior to moving and this had been spent on a colourful square of congoleum, a cheaper form of linoleum. This had been purchased at the City Arcade and three pairs of brightly patterned cretonne curtains bought at Cyril’s textile shop in the Westport completed our outlay. This had to be paid back at a few shillings a week, also on a Friday night.

  The new lino was bright but, because it was a square, it left an edge of wooden flooring around the edges. Thankfully, the previous tenants had darkened this edge with wood stain, which was more than could be said for the walls. The decor left a lot to be desired, with tatty, torn wallpaper on most of the walls and a bilious-looking ochre-coloured paint in the kitchen and bathroom. This colour was so awful that Mum often said it made the food look terrible and the room, during those initial few months, was always freezing. However, because Grandad’s table was in the living room, we normally ate our meals in front of the fire and it wasn’t a big problem.

  Mum had her dreams. ‘If Eh ever win the football pools, Eh’ll decorate this entire house and get great furniture – just the way Eh want it.’

  We realised we couldn’t wait for Littlewoods Pools to come to our rescue and, as it turned out, it was Bella who proved to be our benefactor. ‘Eh’ve heard that my next-door neighbour’s cousin is selling a three-piece suite – a settee and two chairs. She wanted five pounds for them but she’s willing to accept three pounds, ten shillings because Eh told her you were a friend of mine.’

  Mum went with Bella to see this suite and was ecstatic when she saw it. The cousin lived in a dark, poky flat in Jamaica Street and the building was more run down than the one we had recently left behind. The suite was brown leather-look, or Rexene as it was called, with large, squashy cushions in brown velvet. Mum snapped it up right away. She had taken her last two pounds with her because Bella had said the cousin would accept payment over two weeks. Mum wasn’t sure how she would find the remaining balance of thirty shillings but she said she would worry about that when the time came.

  There was, however, the problem of delivery but the inde-fatigable Bella soon solved this. She persuaded the man of the house to take on the job for an extra half-crown, to be paid with the outstanding balance. It transpired that he knew a delivery man who had access to a small cart and pony, so it was all systems go on the three-piece suite front.

  Mum tried to forget about the added half-crown on top of the thirty-shilling burden. All she could think about was how wonderful this new furniture would look in our new house, alongside Grandad’s old, scratched but well-looked-after sideboard. She planned to have it delivered the next day after school so that I could be at home to let the man in. Although she didn’t say so, I just knew she was glad to be at work. That way, she wouldn’t have to worry about what the neighbours might think of a small, tatty cart and pony delivering our suite. ‘After all,’ she said, ‘Eh expect folk around here get their furniture from Henderson’s Stores in the Wellgate.’

  When the man duly arrived, I was taken aback. He looked like a gypsy, with a deep-brown, tanned face and a red scarf tied around a thin, wrinkled neck like a tortoise’s. Seemingly, he was thirty-five years old with a young family of five children. He certainly looked ancient to me but maybe this was the result of his outdoor job, plying his trade in all kinds of sunshine, rain and snow. He had brought another man with him and they both humped our gorgeous new purchase along the path.

  Once inside the house, the gypsy-looking man could barely take his eyes away from the large window and the big room. ‘Will you show me the rest of the house?’ he asked, in a surprisingly soft voice.

  I hesitated, taken aback by such a request from a swarthy stranger. George made for the front door but I yanked him back. ‘We’ll both show you,’ I said, alarm obviously showing on my face.

  The man held up his hand. ‘Eh don’t want to frighten you, pet. It’s just that Eh have a wee proposition to make tae your mother when she comes to pay the rest of the money next week.’

  Mum almost had a fit when I passed on the gist of the conversation. Her poor face was a picture, and the minute our tea was over she set off for Jamaica Street, via Norrie’s Pend.

  She returned an hour or so later with Bella in tow, both looking crestfallen. The proposition had been a business deal. The couple, along with their large family, were all crammed into two dark and dismal tiny rooms. Because of this desperate situation, they were frantic to get a new house. Although well up on the Corporation housing list, Jamaica Street, unlike our old street, wasn’t on the demolition rota.

  They offered Mum a sum of twenty pounds plus a complete decoration of their old flat along with all fittings of lino and curtains if Mum would do a swap with them. It wasn’t as if we would never get another new house, they said, as it was only a matter of time before all these old and crumbling tenements were demolished. Twenty pounds was an absolute fortune to us, and Mum did admit afterwards that she was tempted but she turned them down.

  This decision didn’t mean that she was unsympathetic to their plight, as she explained later to Bella. ‘Eh really felt sorry for them, Bella, but Eh’ve waited years for a house with a bathroom and hot water. Anyway, we’ve just got the one bedroom here and that wouldn’t be enough for their big family.’

  Bella, who was still incarcerated in her dark flat at Norrie’s Pend, agreed. ‘No, just you hang on to your house, Molly. After all, it’s just a matter of time before we’re all re-housed and we’ve just tae content ourselves till then.’

  Mum was still feeling guilty. ‘Eh felt like crying when Eh saw the five bairns all crammed into that wee bed but, after getting a taste of this new house, Eh would hate tae give it up.’

  One thing this little episode showed was how desperate the housing shortage was. If it hadn’t been for the Corporation wanting the land on which our old houses stood, then we would have all been in the same position. Mum was still upset the following week, so I was sent to pay the balance. She did, however, put in a small note thanking them for a lovely suite and hoping the family would soon be in a new house.

  Over the next few weeks, Mum got into the habit of mentioning the lost opportunity, especially when mulling over our money problems. She would sit in the comfort of her easy chair with a piece of paper and jot down all the outgoings, which never seemed to balance with our income.

  ‘Now then, let’s see. You’ll have your two and six this week from your milk round and the same again next week. That makes five bob. Eh wonder if Eh can maybe miss the rent this week.’

  She let this plan mull around in her head for a few moments before deciding the rent should be kept up to date. ‘Now, if Eh was out this Friday when the Provident man comes around, then that would save a few shillings.’

  She looked at me as if seeking divine inspiration but when it wasn’t forthcoming she merely screwed the bit of paper into a ball and lobbed it into the fire. ‘Och, something will turn up, Eh suppose.’ Like my late Grandad, it would seem she was also an eternal optimist.

  The milk round she mentioned was my early-morning job with Sherrit’s Dairy on the Hilltown. I had heard through the playground grapevine that a job was going begging, due to the unexpected illness of one of the milk boys. I hurried to the dairy as soon as the school disgorged us, enquiring if the job was still open. It was, and I was told to be at the shop by six-thirty the following morning.

  Mr Sherrit was a lovely man. He had the healthy, outdoor appearance of a farmer but his house was actually across the street from the shop. The house lay up a wide pend and there was also a byre with cows, like a miniature farm.

  By the time I arrived the following morning, a small group of tired-looking, pale-faced children
stood waiting for the heavy metal churns to arrive. Wishing we could all have stayed in our warm beds, we watched as the owner ladled the milk into bottles. To my consternation, I was given a large metal pushcart which held three crates of milk bottles, two firmly encased in the framework and one balanced on top. There was also a metal hand carrier which held six bottles, to be used while climbing the stairs.

  The routine never varied. We began with the closes nearest to the shop, returning for a further refill of three crates before toddling off to our outlying customers. And because I was the new girl, my customers were almost on the moon. At six-thirty on a dark morning it felt like that.

  My outward journey took in the catchment area from Kinghorne Road in the north then back to the shop through all the small, dark interconnecting streets in between. It was just my bad luck that my time as temporary milk person coincided with the dark mornings. Climbing up three or four flights of stairs with just a solitary, flickering gas-lamp, or worse, no light at all, was very scary.

  Sometime my shadow would rise up ahead of me, silhouetted against the narrow walls like the monster from Phantom of the Rue Morgue. Another scary time was spent having to circumnavigate the old air-raid shelters in the back lands of the tenements. Being cursed with an overdeveloped imagination made life very difficult as I was convinced that these stark, concrete buildings housed at least one murderous maniac. It was a huge relief when I finished the round unscathed.

  There was one strict rule that we had to adhere to because we were still in the land of shortages and rationing. If a customer forgot to put out her empties at the door then that was tough luck, because we couldn’t leave a refill. We also had to be careful with all the precious empty bottles. They were like gold dust. I was really proud of the fact that I hadn’t broken a single bottle but one thing I’ve learned in life is never to be smug, because that’s when God sends some kind of retribution to wipe the smugness from your soul. Pride goes before a fall, as I was about to discover.